Most resort venues (e.g. hotel, restaurant, gaming tables) are employee-staffed and offer clear opportunities for staff/guest interaction. In order to differentiate and improve the resort casino customer gaming experience and increase utilization of all resort casino offerings by as many guests as possible, resort personnel must recognize, reach out to, and personalize their service to all guests at all points of contact. However, the nature of gaming (e.g., slot) machines and player terminals, where guests typically interact directly with a machine, limits the opportunities for personalized service. Given the inherent personalized nature of account-based gaming and the potential of applying technology to the gaming floor, including Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and other graphical display technologies, on-board Network Interface Controllers, and high speed Local Area Network infrastructures (e.g., switches, routers, and CAT5/6 wiring), it is possible to offer enhanced gaming and services to the customer, achieve a greater degree of personalized service, and extend the resort to the customer on the gaming floor.
Furthermore, in order to maintain operation of a gaming terminal by a resort, a gaming terminal typically includes an interface that provides resort personnel access to terminal settings and other information associated with the terminal. For example, resort personnel may disable the terminal, reset the terminal, access play history, change terminal configuration, review terminal accounting data, etc. In many instances terminal access is provided directly from the main screen of the gaming terminal, or through a user interface on a player tracking module screen or a combination of player tracking screen with a keypad that is integrated into the player tracking module.
When a resort employee uses such a user interface, any information displayed on the main screen or the player tracking screen may be visible to bystanders. As a result, players may be able to view proprietary resort information (e.g., hold percentages of the gaming terminal, the amount of net revenue the terminal is earning, etc.). The small screen size and limited keyboard functionality of the player tracking module may additionally restrict the type of interface that can be provided. Furthermore, a player may be positioned in front of the player tracking module or may be using the terminal, which may prevent resort personnel from accessing the terminal.
An alternative approach to an interface for accessing the gaming terminal is a remote access to the terminal through a back office console. This addresses some of the problems discussed above, but additionally requires an employee at the terminal to communicate back to the employee in the back office.
The disclosed systems and methods are directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.